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Revision as of 20:16, 25 April 2008 editTimVickers (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users58,184 edits The various meta-analyses of homeopathy: reply← Previous edit Revision as of 20:34, 25 April 2008 edit undoTimVickers (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users58,184 edits The various meta-analyses of homeopathy: edNext edit →
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:Individual clinical trials are less important to this article than meta-analyses that combine such trials to achieve greater statistical power and make sure local bias from individual research groups is controlled for. Relying on the meta-analyses also avoids the danger that editors might pick out positive trials, and ignore negative ones (or vice versa), since meta-analyses give a rigorous and expert assessment of all the evidence. ] (]) 16:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC) :Individual clinical trials are less important to this article than meta-analyses that combine such trials to achieve greater statistical power and make sure local bias from individual research groups is controlled for. Relying on the meta-analyses also avoids the danger that editors might pick out positive trials, and ignore negative ones (or vice versa), since meta-analyses give a rigorous and expert assessment of all the evidence. ] (]) 16:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
::Yes, I understand that, but the reference to the above Reilly studies is that this was their 3rd of four studies on allergic disorders...and this Lancet article IS a meta-analysis of his first 3 studies, totaling 202 patients. And when you consider what the Lancet editorial said about this work, it IS notable. It may be controversial as to whether the BROAD field of homeopathic research is positive, negative, or mixed, but it is not controversial that there is a body of evidence showing efficacy in the treatment of respiratory allergies. THAT is my point here...and it should be noted that the Shang review of research mysteriously makes no reference to the body of work by Reilly (I file this one under "how convenient"). In addition to these points, there are several RS meta-analyses which are presently discussed on the Talk page which are not a part of the article. I cannot help but sense that many editors here only want the "negative" meta-analyses referenced and discussed in the article. I hope that you will help be one of the editors who wants reference to other RS meta-analsyes. ]<sup>]</sup> 20:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC) ::Yes, I understand that, but the reference to the above Reilly studies is that this was their 3rd of four studies on allergic disorders...and this Lancet article IS a meta-analysis of his first 3 studies, totaling 202 patients. And when you consider what the Lancet editorial said about this work, it IS notable. It may be controversial as to whether the BROAD field of homeopathic research is positive, negative, or mixed, but it is not controversial that there is a body of evidence showing efficacy in the treatment of respiratory allergies. THAT is my point here...and it should be noted that the Shang review of research mysteriously makes no reference to the body of work by Reilly (I file this one under "how convenient"). In addition to these points, there are several RS meta-analyses which are presently discussed on the Talk page which are not a part of the article. I cannot help but sense that many editors here only want the "negative" meta-analyses referenced and discussed in the article. I hope that you will help be one of the editors who wants reference to other RS meta-analsyes. ]<sup>]</sup> 20:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
:A clinical trial with a grand total of 24 patients? I'm not surprised others working in the field ignored it, I certainly would. ] (]) 20:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC) :A clinical trial with a grand total of 24 patients and then scraping together data from a set of similarly tiny trials? I'm not surprised others working in the field ignored it, I certainly would. Try looking at trials on the same topic using reasonable numbers of participants eg ]. ] (]) 20:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


== Question. == == Question. ==

Revision as of 20:34, 25 April 2008


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No RfXs since 17:37, 25 December 2024 (UTC).—Talk to my owner:Online

Informing past contributors of new TFD for Template:Maintained

As you were a contributor in the last TFD, I am letting you know that {{Maintained}} is again up for deletion. Please review the current version of the template and discuss it at the TFD. Thanks! — BRIAN0918 • 2008-01-30 17:48Z

Barnstar

It was a while ago, but I haven't forgotten.

<Moved to trophy cabinet> :)

ref:deletion Satish Babu

Hi, The page Satish Babu was deleted on 13th of February.It was about the contributions of a journalist to the Regional Media. Can you let me know how it could find relevance and where i can find the deleted page? User:Madhuritalluri(talk)

Admiration

I admire your image works !


Thanks!

thank you very much!!! You´ve been very useful, keep in touch! blitox

RfA Thanks

A message from WarthogDemon.
Korean Fir
Korean Fir
I would like to thank you for your participation in my recent RfA, was unsuccessful with 61 support, 25 oppose, and 4 neutral. I've been taking the advice of the Opposes into practice and hopefully I can improve myself. Once again, thank you. ^_^

Question for you...

I would like to write an article about K12 Inc., an education company. However, would that be considered advertising? What are the chances of it being deleted?

And remember: Listen to your Princess, dear Wikipedians. (talk) 15:43, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Image:Chronic HBV v2.png

A tag has been placed on Image:Chronic HBV v2.png requesting that it be speedily deleted from Misplaced Pages. This has been done under section I8 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is available as a bit-for-bit identical copy on the Wikimedia Commons under the same name, or all references to the image on Misplaced Pages have been updated to point to the title used at Commons.

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Rosalind Franklin image

Hi Tim, I remember a little while ago you were looking for a free image of Franklin for some purpose that escapes my memory. Last month someone uploaded a PD image of Franklin from the NIH archives to the commons, commons:Image:Rosalind Franklin.jpg. I've looked into it and although most of the NIH images of Franklin here do not appear to be free, this image does indeed seem to have been released into the public domain by the NIH, the only use of it I can find of it by the NIH is here, the NIH do not make reference to it being copyright at all (while all of the other images they use are attributed). The NIH does indeed release to the public domain. As far as I can tell this image is therefore free because it doesn't state otherwise. Any good? Alun (talk) 12:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face :)

We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet for auld lang syne? :)

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering pattle.

I'm truly sorry girl's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion
An' fellow mortal!

Dear Tim,

I know you'd be going outside your comfort-zone, but I dearly need your help with action potential. Won't you be so kind as to give it a look-see and maybe give us some advice and help? I daresay it'll be more fun for you than whacking vandals. The article is still rather ghastly in its wording and I honestly don't know if I can bring it up to Sandy's standards without you. My courage is drooping, especially when I consider the long, twilit road still ahead. :( Anyway, I hope you can come and help; thanks, Tim! :)

Great chieftain o' the wiki-race, aboon them a' ye tak yer place! ;) Willow (talk) 19:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

PS. I hope everything's going well with your newly shy enzyme. :)

My standards? Heck, I can do MoS fixes and ref cleanup anytime the text is finished; not a problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:00, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
That's a nice offer, Sandy! I've already fixed the dashes and most of the references, and we're working on the abc-123 thing; but I'm sure that the article still has many peccadillos. As you say, though, we should agree on the text, before we get too finicky about the MoS compliance. :) Willow (talk) 20:18, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Honest sonsie face

Hey Tim,

Thanks for your help the other day with action potential! :) I'm not sure if you're keeping abreast of its FAR, but your opinion carries a great deal of weight there. If you feel that the article is worth retaining as an Featured article, now would be a good time to change your vote from Remove to something more positive. But I'd welcome your sincerest opinion and advice, no matter how critical, as I hope you know. :) Willow (talk) 19:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

RFA redux time?

Since my first RFA ended on the 13th of November, I figure it's been long enough to try again. What do you think? Also, FYI, I went through admin coaching with Acalamari, and promised him and AGK/Anthony they could co-nom. Let me know, VanTucky 19:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Please tell me when you've created the page, TimVickers: then I can add my co-nomination to it before it goes live. Thanks. Acalamari 01:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much Tim, for everything. VanTucky 19:06, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Darwin Papers Released

Which wiki site could this go on? I'm sure it could be mentioned in Darwin's article.--Otterathome (talk) 00:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Kumioko

Hi Tim, just wanted to let you know that I responded to your oppose on this RfA, and it sparked a brief discussion that you might find interesting. Thanks, Darkspots (talk) 13:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

MY RFA

Thanks, I'll try and bear that in mind while I lick my wounds from the thourough lashing I've received.:-)--Kumioko (talk) 16:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The various meta-analyses of homeopathy

Tim, perhaps you may want to add your thoughts here. In addition to proposing reference to and description of more meta-analysis published in RS journals, Arion's assertion that Brunton was quote-mining and only providing a partial quote by Linde is revealing. I hope that you can help us move towards consensus. DanaUllman 01:05, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Revealing about Arion and those who repeat it, perhaps. We were discussing Linde 1997. The passages that Arion objected to my having omitted were about the editorial accompanying the 2005 Shang paper. Not only is this not the paper we were discussing, the editorial in question is not even referred to in the article. It is not "quote-mining" to omit passages that are irrelevant. Brunton (talk) 09:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually, it IS quote-mining when you provide a quote from an author that is the exact opposite of the primary meaning and intention of the author. Let me ask you, then, what was the primary message of the Linde letter to the editor? DanaUllman 18:53, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
The "primary intention" of the paper was to make some fairly specific criticisms of the Shang paper and some rather broader criticisms of the accompanying editorial; however, we were discussing neither on the homeopathy talk page. The sentence I quoted does not, as you and Arion seem to be claiming, say anything particularly negative about homoeopathy; it just makes a specific statement about a paper we were considering, which is precisely relevant to the weight that should be given to that paper. In any case, I'm not quite sure how a sentence which, perhaps, implies that homoeopathy is not proven is "the exact opposite of the primary meaning and intention" of a letter that states, in its lead paragraph, that the authors "agree that homoeopathy is highly implausible and that the evidence from placebo-controlled trials is not robust". But that's beside the point. I was making a point about Linde 1997, not about homoeopathy in general, and the passages that Arion objected to my omitting were not relevant to that paper, or to any other paper we were discussing. I would suggest that Tim's talk page is not an appropriate venue for further discussion of this. Brunton (talk) 08:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, my invitation to Tim to comment is perfectly appropriate, especially in the light of the fact that Tim has made more edits to the homeopathy article than anyone else. Because of Tim's participation in the homeopathy article, I want to alert him to the Lancet's editorial in response to the 3rd trial Dr David Reilly's team had conducted on the treatment of people with various allergy disoorders and found significant results each time, December 10, 1994, p. 1585. The editorial asserts, "They (Reilly, et al) invite us to choose between two interpretations of this activity: either there is something amiss with the clinical trial as conventionally conducted (theirs was done with exceptional rigour); or the effects of the homoeopathic immunotherapy differ from those of placebo." The editorial further says, "carefully done work of this sort should not be denied the attention of Lancet readers." In the article by Reilly, he says, "Either answer suggested by the evidence to date--homoeopathy works, or the clinical trial does not--is equally challenging to current medicine science." Later on, he concludes, "Our results lead us to conclude that homoeopathy differs from placebo in an inexplicable but reproducible way." (p. 1606) It seems a bit odd that the Reilly research is not mentioned at all in the homeopathy article. Tim, as you may know, many editors seem a bit "allergic" to proposals from me. Perhaps a proposal from you would achieve faster consensus? DanaUllman 16:39, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Individual clinical trials are less important to this article than meta-analyses that combine such trials to achieve greater statistical power and make sure local bias from individual research groups is controlled for. Relying on the meta-analyses also avoids the danger that editors might pick out positive trials, and ignore negative ones (or vice versa), since meta-analyses give a rigorous and expert assessment of all the evidence. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I understand that, but the reference to the above Reilly studies is that this was their 3rd of four studies on allergic disorders...and this Lancet article IS a meta-analysis of his first 3 studies, totaling 202 patients. And when you consider what the Lancet editorial said about this work, it IS notable. It may be controversial as to whether the BROAD field of homeopathic research is positive, negative, or mixed, but it is not controversial that there is a body of evidence showing efficacy in the treatment of respiratory allergies. THAT is my point here...and it should be noted that the Shang review of research mysteriously makes no reference to the body of work by Reilly (I file this one under "how convenient"). In addition to these points, there are several RS meta-analyses which are presently discussed on the Talk page which are not a part of the article. I cannot help but sense that many editors here only want the "negative" meta-analyses referenced and discussed in the article. I hope that you will help be one of the editors who wants reference to other RS meta-analsyes. DanaUllman 20:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
A clinical trial with a grand total of 24 patients and then scraping together data from a set of similarly tiny trials? I'm not surprised others working in the field ignored it, I certainly would. Try looking at trials on the same topic using reasonable numbers of participants eg PMID 11872551. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Question.

How can you edit Evolution, but I cannot? Thanks. Yhvh777 (talk) 04:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Small request

Hey, Tim. Can you help me out by taking a look at some of Sebright (chicken)? Specifically, in the Characteristics section there are some journal cites that I want to make sure I did correctly, and if you could perhaps add a sentence explaining the mechanism which the journal cites study (I don't quite get it), I would really appreciate it. Afterwards I'll probably put it up for GA. Thanks again for the nomination, VanTucky 21:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a million Tim, I appreciate you lending your expertise. Now if only ten of your colleagues would do the same... ;) VanTucky 19:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

lupus

rv?--WLU (talk) 01:17, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Is a self-published book written by internationally recognised experts an acceptable source for Misplaced Pages?

Hi Tim, at last I've managed to get my Misplaced Pages account sorted and so I can actually sign my posts. I've recently made a couple of edits to the evolution draft document, one of which you undid, explaining that the source was a self published book (the field guide to genetic programming). I've read the pointer you provided on reliable sources, and I generally agree with what's there. However, the documents also states an ecception: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." I believe we can claim this for the "field guide". I have published over 240 peer reviewed papers in conferences and journals, plus a highly cited book (Foundations of Genetic Programming, published by Springer, 2002). I'm also an associate editor of three international journals. The second author and third authors have similar experiences. Please, check our CV at the very beginning of the "field guide" book or simply look at our contributions to genetic programming at http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~wbl/biblio/gp-html/index.html The reason why we went self publishing is simply to generously donate our knowledge to science free of charge. The book is Creative Commons Licenced. Essentially we had the same objectives of the wikipedia. We want to reach people.

Riccardopoli (talk) 18:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Homeopathy

I'm not sure I want to get deeply involved. I dipped a toe in the water in February, but withdrew because the editing seemed very aggressive. But I'll certainly take a look at the magic section — it sounds too interesting to miss. :-) SlimVirgin 17:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

User:SlimVirgin

Believe me, I was quite serious in my attempt to know a list of her current and past sockpuppets. Thanks for your help, MoonGlare (talk) 20:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for voting in my RfA, which passed with 194 supporting, 9 opposing, and 4 neutral.
Your kindness and constructive criticism is very much appreciated. I look forward to using the tools you have granted me to aid the project. I would like to give special thanks to Tim Vickers, Anthony and Acalamari for their nominations.
Thank you again, VanTucky

YouTube: Benefits of Antioxidants

We are currently in the process of creating a number of health videos and we are wondering why this video keeps getting pulled off of wikipedia? I came to find out last time that Somno could not even watch the video that we published, please see below.

If this is considered spam or advertising please tell us how, so that we may change the scripts of our future videos.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

We are thankful for your constant work monitoring wikipedia from spam and solicitations. However we feel that our video regarding the health benefits of antioxidants is good non-bias helpful health information. Would you please take a minute to watch the video in its entirety and let us know how or why it is not suitable for wikipedia.

YouTube: Benefits of Antioxidants Thanks! StayHealthyTV (talk) 16:19, 14 April 2008 (UTC) OK, I will watch it when I edit from somewhere that doesn't have Youtube blocked. Somno (talk) 01:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC) Hi Somno, I just wanted to follow up to see if the video meets your approval and if you agree that we are not 'spamming' the wiki. Please let us know when you have a chance to approve the video. Thanks! Hi Somno, we never heard back from you regarding the video so we reposted it. If you still feel this is a problem please review the video and tell us what you would like to see changed with future videos so that it is not considered 'spam'. We feel that using YouTube is a great medium to provide health advice to our ADD generation. Thanks again for your time and help with this matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by StayHealthyTV (talk • contribs) 19:00, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

StayHealthyTV (talk) 22:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Please move the Universe?

Not an impossible request for you, methinks. ; User:Anubad95 just moved Universe to something else; could you please move it back and erase the fact it was ever moved? People are so silly sometimes! Thanks! :) Willow (talk) 05:51, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Dealt with before I came to it. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Animal testing

Is a useful reference for your Animal testing article?--Filll (talk) 11:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)